‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you bother.’
‘Because you’re my mum and I love you.’
‘It’s still good of you though.’
She walked in the middle of us, me carrying her shopping bag, Karen linking arms with her and chatting away. ‘How are things at your scheme?’
‘Oh, they’re okay.’
‘Is that neighbour still sending you flowers? Frank. Didn’t you say his name was Frank?’
‘Oh, him. I put a stop to that, knocked on his door, gave him his flowers back, told him to send them to someone who’d appreciate them.’
‘I thought you liked him,’ said Karen.
‘You’ve got to be careful,’ said Mum. ‘There’s always a price to pay with men.’
We reached the entrance to Taylor’s Tea Rooms.
‘You go first, Mum. I’ll be behind.’
‘Yeah,’ said Karen. ‘We’ll catch you if you fall.’
Mum started to hobble up the stairs, wincing as the arthritis in her knees caught her by surprise.
‘Have you taken your painkillers?’ I said.
‘They make me drowsy,’ she said, limping up the next step.
I rolled my eyes at Karen and we carried on up the stairs. We reached the landing, went through the double entrance doors into the restaurant and waited next to the function room for the waitress to come over and show us to our seats.
‘I always feel like I’m coming to the Ritz here,’ said Mum.
‘It’s a nice tea room,’ I said.
‘The best,’ said Karen. ‘Makes you feel like royalty.’
A waitress in her black skirt, Persil-white top and frilly bow-tied waist apron came over and showed us to a table in the window. Through the net curtain we could see the war memorial with its red poppy remembrance wreaths covering the steps. Mum studied her menu as though she was reading a holy parchment. Karen and I waited.
‘I’ll have fish and chips, two slices of bread and butter and a pot of tea.’
‘We’ll have the same,’ I said. ‘But we want the tea in separate pots.’
Mum smiled. ‘Those pots are so cute,’ she said.
Karen and I laughed.
The waitress returned, carrying a silver tray with three white ripple-patterned ceramic pots and three blue willow china cups and saucers. Mum served us, putting a spot of milk in each cup. ‘Always put your milk in first,’ she said. ‘Don’t show your ignorance.’ She lifted the lid off each pot and mashed the tea bags. ‘Leave them for a few minutes. Let them stew a bit.’ Her hands shook as she poured the tea. ‘I’ll play Mum.’ She lifted her cup, pursed her lips and blew gently. ‘They always make it too hot.’
‘You could put more milk in, Mum.’
‘Oh no. I can’t stand baby tea.’ The waitress appeared again with our food, which she laid out in front of us. ‘Goodness. I’ll never eat all that.’
‘Leave what you don’t want, Mum.’ We made fish and chip butties with Lurpak butter, cutting the sandwich into four triangles.
‘Shall we have pudding?’ said Mum. I waved at the waitress. Back she came, this time wheeling the sweet trolley – strawberry trifle, Victoria sponges, chocolate eclairs, fruit scones.
‘I’ll have the trifle,’ said Mum.
‘We’ll have the same,’ I said.
After trifle we ordered another pot of tea each and listened to Karen telling us about the latest drama in her love life.
‘You have three men?’ said Mum.
‘They’re not all in my life at the same time,’ said Karen.
‘I’m lost,’ said Mum.
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘It’s easy,’ said Karen, holding up the salt pot. ‘This is Tony, my soulmate. He’s married, but we know we’re destined to be together eventually.’ She put the salt pot down and picked up the pepper pot. ‘This is Jake, my bloke. We go out to the pub, the theatre, meals, but it’s short-term, companionship really.’ She picked up the mustard pot. ‘And this is John, my ex-husband. I’ll never stop looking after him. I see him for a meal every Friday.’
‘Isn’t he living with someone else now?’ I said.
‘I’m the wife though,’ she said. ‘We never got divorced.’
‘It all sounds very complicated,’ said Mum.
I lined up the salt, pepper and mustard pots. ‘Tony, Jake and John,’ I said, tapping each one in turn. ‘Do they know they’re part of a condiment set?’
Mum and Karen laughed.
After lunch we walked around Cannock centre. Mum liked to go to the indoor market, looking for a bargain. One year she bought a red Regatta coat, reduced from eighty to twenty pounds. It was two coats in one, a rain mac and a fleece. She never wore the mac, didn’t like the colour, but she loved the fleece. ‘So you’ve paid twenty pounds for a fleece.’ ‘Still a bargain, sweetheart.’
We walked past Preedy’s newsagents in the high street, the shop where Freddie had worked as a trainee manager after he’d left the timber yard. One Saturday he’d taken me to meet Mavis, the manageress, who was renowned, locally and nationally, for her prize-winning window displays. She was a five-foot-four-inches rocket of a woman with a jet-black beehive hairdo. ‘You’re his girl, are you?’ she’d said as we walked into the shop. ‘I can see why he’s always talking about you.’ Freddie had blushed from the neck upwards and stared at the floor. ‘Oh, bless him. I’ve embarrassed him again.’
‘Wait for it,’ said Karen as we walked past the shop.
‘Isn’t that where your young man worked?’ said Mum.
‘Freddie,’ I said.
‘Love of her life,’ said Karen. ‘I still can’t believe you asked him to dance.’
‘I liked him,’ said Mum.
Jo-Jo – July 2015
I’m walking past a coffee shop in Walsall high street and I see him. He’s sitting at a table in the al-fresco area at the front of the shop, drinking cappuccino and eating a slice of Bakewell tart. She’s opposite him with her back to me. His woman, his knock-off, his bit on the side. They’re laughing. He squeezes her hand. She touches his face. ‘Dad,’ I say. Neither of them turns around. I walk up the path, stand right next to their table. ‘Dad,’ I scream. ‘Dad.’ He turns to face me. ‘I still love your mother,’ he says. ‘I still love your mother.’ I spit in his face. He groans and wipes his cheek with a serviette. His skin is peeling away, his hair is falling out – his flesh drops with a splat on the table. ‘Dad,’ I scream. ‘Dad.’ He stops wiping and looks straight at me. His woman turns away and retches bile onto the coffee shop floor. Dad’s skull gives me a rictus smile.
Tap, tap, tap. I opened my eyes and rubbed them. Tap, tap, tap. I peered at the clock. 12.30 A.M.
‘Who is it?’ I called.
‘Mum. It’s me. You awake?’
I pushed the duvet back and rolled out of bed. ‘For God’s sake, Amy, it’s after midnight.’ I stumbled over to the door and opened it. ‘Are you okay?’
She pushed past me into the room and sat down on the bed. ‘He wants to meet you, Mum. He wants to explain everything.’
I closed the door, walked over to the bedside table, picked up my glass of water and took a gulp. ‘Who?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Freddie,’ she said.
I sat down next to her and had another gulp of water. ‘You’ve seen him? I don’t understand. When did you see Freddie?’
‘He called. I asked him to come to the hotel.’
‘He called you?’
‘No. He called you, but I asked the receptionist to put your calls through to me. I didn’t want you upset.’
‘You did what?’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Pleased that you met my ex-boyfriend and sorted out my love life? At what point did I becom
e the child in our relationship?’
‘You’re not listening. Freddie wants to meet you. He wants to explain everything.’
I stood up, walked over to the window and opened the curtains. Dark had fallen like a blackout sheet, the sky was cloudless. I could see a half moon and a sky full of stars. ‘Go to bed, Amy.’
‘I said you’d meet him.’
‘You meet him. Tell him I’ve checked out and I don’t want to see him again.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘It’s all too late.’
Amy joined me at the window and put her arm around me. ‘What’s wrong, Mum? I can’t help if you don’t tell me. He loves you and you clearly love him.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The way you talk about him. You never talked about Dad in that way.’
‘I never felt that way about your father.’
‘What’s the problem then?’
‘Freddie doesn’t know everything that happened.’
‘He said he came to find you a couple of months after you went to Lincoln. He came up on the train with Jack, got a cab out to your place.’
‘That’s not true. I didn’t have any contact from him.’
‘He saw you with another guy who had his arm around you. He assumed you’d moved on, told the cab driver to take him back to the station.’
‘Liam,’ I said.
‘So you had moved on?’
‘Liam was a friend, nothing more. When was this?’
‘He couldn’t remember exactly, but he thought it was about November time.’
I stared out of the window again. ‘That could have changed everything,’ I said.
*
Amy had gone back to her room. I was thinking about Liam. Chicken dinner, merlot-drinking, bowler-hatted, umbrella-swinging Liam. I wished he’d reappear like a genie out of a bottle and cosset me in our little rented student flat, shutting out the rest of the world, rescuing me as he’d saved me from the ten, nine, eight, high-pitched screaming in my head, one man, a doctor, paper sheets, a waiting room, judging eyes watching from behind their uniforms, more waiting, painkillers, taxi-ride-crying, vomiting, black-hole-nothingness.
Freddie – July 2015
Bob’s iPhone rang. ‘Terry’s dead,’ he said, dropping his phone on the settee, tears already welling in his eyes. Jack and I went over and put our arms around him, the three of us scrummed in the centre of the lounge. I could feel Bob squeezing me tight.
‘Let’s go see him,’ said Jack.
We crawled over the village speed bumps in Jack’s Mini Cooper, heading for the main road, splodges of rain bouncing off the windscreen, tributaries spreading out and joining up to create a hazy film. I thought about the drooling, food-stained man I’d seen on my one and only visit to the care home a year earlier, his communication limited to a gentle squeeze in his right hand. Bob was staring out of the passenger window. I wondered what he was thinking. Jack had his hand on Bob’s leg, only moving it to change gear. No-one spoke. I had no idea what to say.
We reached Bluebird Lodge and Jack reversed the Mini into one of the parking spaces. A man and a woman got out of the BMW parked next to us. The woman searched her handbag, pulled out a folded-up daffodil-yellow umbrella and pressed a button on the handle to make the umbrella spring into life. They carried on walking, the man hugging the woman close, holding the umbrella over them both.
‘I’ll wait here,’ I said.
Thirty minutes later, I saw the care home’s entrance doors swish open. The Jam’s ‘‘A’ Bomb in Wardour Street’ was banging out of the Mini’s CD player – Rick Buckler’s drumbeat ricocheting around the car. Bob stepped through the doors first. Jack was behind him. They said something to each other and then hugged before walking across the car park and getting into the car. Jack turned off the music.
‘You okay?’ I said.
‘He looked like he was asleep,’ said Bob.
‘Has someone phoned his family?’ I said.
‘Matron,’ said Jack. ‘The daughter’s on the way. Fucking hypocrite. She hasn’t spoken to him for twenty years.’
‘She’s still family,’ said Bob. ‘Terry would’ve wanted her there.’
Jack faced him. ‘You’re his family,’ he said.
Bob stroked Jack’s face. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
Freddie – July 1997
Sitges. The piano bar was starting to fill up. A man, woman and two kids walked in, all of them red-faced from the sun. We’d chatted to the woman by the pool, found out they were from Dudley. The man was always rushing into dinner at the last minute, his family already halfway through their main course, the woman sighing as he explained about his day on slow trains trekking across Catalonia to visit all the religious sites. They perched on the bar stools next to us. The man handed the son, who looked about thirteen, a brown paper bag. ‘I bought it today,’ he said. ‘Go on. Open it.’
The boy sighed, reached into the bag and pulled out a white tie. ‘You’re rubbish at presents, Dad.’
‘Look at the front,’ said the man. ‘It’s Bogie. Isn’t that cool?’
‘Who?’
‘Humphrey Bogart.’
‘Never heard of him,’ said the boy, putting the tie back in the bag.
‘You couldn’t have loved each other,’ said Terry, taking another sip of his San Miguel. ‘Not if you let university pull you apart.’
I looked at the picture of the bull and matador hung behind the bar. ‘I still think about her most days,’ I said. ‘That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?’
‘Not really. You should try and find her.’
‘No point. She’s with someone else. She had lots of dreams and a family was one of them.’
‘You should look her up. At least you could put her memory to rest.’
‘What about you?’ I said. ‘You and Bob seem pretty good together.’
‘Another beer?’ he said, nodding at my empty glass.
The barman came over and picked up the three torn beer mats. ‘This you?’ he said to me.
‘Sorry,’ said Terry. ‘I get this nervous twitch around beer mats.’
The barman wiped the bar, removed our empty glasses, put down fresh mats and started filling up two pints of San Miguel.
Jack walked up to the bar. ‘Make that three,’ he said.
‘You’re late,’ I said.
‘I’ve told you before, Freddie, you and I aren’t married. How’s it going, Terry? You okay?’
‘Getting better the more of these I drink,’ said Terry, lifting up his frosty refilled glass.
Jack and I did the same and we clanked our glasses together.
‘So,’ said Jack, ‘half an hour with Freddie. That must have been fun. What’s he been telling you?’
‘I am here you know.’
‘We’ve been talking about love,’ said Terry.
‘You’ve been talking to Freddie about love. Don’t tell me. Jo-Jo. You’ve been telling him about Jo-Jo.’
‘Is that her name? The girl who disappeared to university.’
‘That’s her,’ said Jack. ‘It’s always her.’
‘We decided he needs to find her,’ said Terry. ‘Check out if it’s the real thing.’
Jack looked at me. ‘Haven’t we done that already?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ I said to Terry. ‘I said I think about her most days.’
‘What’s the point in thinking about her if you’re not going to do something about it?’
‘Because that’s what Freddie’s good at,’ said Jack. ‘Thinking about stuff.’
‘And what about you, Jack? I’m sure we’d all love to hear your views on love. Tell us about your last or any relationship you’ve had.’
Terry glugged down what was left of his beer. ‘I
’m going to find Bob. Let you two get on with your domestic. Good chatting with you, Freddie.’ He dropped down from the stool and walked out of the bar.
‘Well done, Jack. You know how to clear a room.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said. ‘You always get prickly when Jo-Jo gets a mention.’
I picked up one of the beer mats and tore it in half.
‘You know what I find really strange?’ said Jack.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘You never mention the mother of your child. You were with her for longer. You had a daughter with her. And yet you never mention her. It’s always Jo-Jo.’
‘You two want more beers?’ said the barman.
‘Not for me,’ I said.
‘I’ll have one,’ said Jack.
The barman refilled Jack’s glass and put a new beer mat on the bar. He glared at me as he picked up the ripped mat and placed Jack’s replenished pint in front of him.
‘You know what it was like with Jo-Jo,’ I said.
‘She’s gone, Freddie,’ said Jack. ‘You’ve got to let her go. Get on with your life.’
‘Maybe Terry’s right,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we should try and find her.’
‘What do you mean, we?’
‘Come on, Jack. We’re inseparable. You’ll always need me to make you look wonderful.’
‘That’s true,’ he said, putting his arm around my shoulder and hugging me. ‘Everyone needs a mate who’s slightly less good-looking than they are.’
I punched him on the arm. ‘You can be a real prick sometimes.’
‘You serious about finding her?’ he said, taking a sip of his beer.
‘Not really. Like you said, we’ve been there and it didn’t get me anywhere.’
An Extra Shot Page 2
